


The Demon Factory

by TechmarineChrys



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s), Side Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-08-18 17:17:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16521329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TechmarineChrys/pseuds/TechmarineChrys
Summary: In the depths of a bayou infested with demon zombies, the ancient Escalier Mansion rises from the depths and begins churning out more. Sanctuary, a nearby town with a population of a hundred, is the only thing standing in the way of an amassing necromantic horde. The town's protector, a Voodoo Alchemist named Shiela, is the only one that stands a chance against this horde, and even then things are way out of her league. What complicates things is that on that very day the mansion rises, she gets attacked by a mysterious homeless man that claims to know her. Shiela has no choice but to call upon the aid of the infamous demon hunter Dante.(Oh, and she also calls upon a little ginger witch that nobody really knows, but that's not important. Or is it?)(Featuring JadedPandaGirl's very own OC, Tess Templar. Big thanks to her and to all my friends on the unofficial DMC Discord server I joined. I can't thank them enough for the encouragement and help in getting this finished.)





	1. Mission 1 Part 1

**Mission 1: Shiela and Sanctuary**

At the clonking of the cat skulls serving as the store door bell, the shopkeeper’s eyes affixed themselves on the last customer for the day as he let himself into her shop.  

“Welcome to Samedi Elixirs!” she announced in her usual chipper tone, “Where all your problems can be fixed, as long as they’re not a broken heart, an empty wallet or a deceased relation.”

Curiously, the man ignored her stacked shelves of pre-made potions, her genuine voodoo paraphernalia, and the general witch’s-hut décor of her entire store. Instead, he looked at her directly, and his eyes widened for a moment.

“Shiela Samedi, I presume?” the man asked in a snidely, posh and somewhat self-important voice.

Shiela remained calm on the outside, but she inwardly tensed. To the people looking for her services, she was known as Shiela the potion maker, Shiela the voodoo alchemist, or even as that girl in the Baron Samedi outfit that makes potions. Only those looking for her specifically would be using the name on her trading license, and they would usually be tax collectors.

Nothing about this man was official or governmental. He looked like a homeless geography teacher that had been struck by lightning. His colour coordination was abysmal at best, and at worst he would have been arrested on the spot by the fashion police! The cleanest part of him was his frizzy black hair, his equally frizzy goatee and his otherwise clean-shaven face.  Clean was too generous a descriptor, as his odour overpowered even the swamp outside.

His name did not matter anymore. In Shiela's mind, this man would forever be dubbed 'Stinky McPukepants.’ Yes, his trousers were such a hideous puke green that they deserved a special place in his nickname.

There was only one truly clean part of Stinky, and that was that cane he was holding. It looked like it belonged to a sophisticated shaman, not a stinky homeless puke-pants.

There was no doubt McPukepants had identified her solely by what she was wearing. Shiela’s outfit certainly exuded both class and the essence of Baron Samedi. She was most fond of the top hat with the tasteful cat skull. Still, that look… Like he’d seen a ghost…

“Yeah,” Shiela responded, keeping calm, “Like I said before, sir, I can’t fix an empty wallet. I can offer you the keys to the public outhouse, if you want.”

Stinky McPukepants shook his head and smiled genially at the shopkeeper. Shiela inwardly winced. It was like watching a Rat King shift into an approximation of a human smiling face.

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” the posh hobo replied, turned to leave, then ominously added, “There’s only _one_ way you can help me.”

Shiela was ready for it before it happened. The homeless man spun around, gripping at the silver handle of the cane and pulling to reveal an impossibly-sharp-looking gleaming blade. Shiela acted instinctively. She grabbed the small table to the side of her desk and threw it at Stinky.

McPukepants took a step back, snarled, and sliced through the table as he finished drawing the cane sword fully. The blade was as long and thin as could fit in the sheath, and yet it went through the table like a knife through butter. The table parted mid-air to reveal that Shiela had just finished taking a swig of a clear liquid from a vial. There was an almighty crash as one of the table halves crashed against the shelves of vials. The other thudded against the door. Valuable potions spilled and crashed to the floor as, with an inarticulate cry of rage, Stinky charged at Shiela, ready to run her through.

Shiela had bought enough time. She vaulted over the counter, meeting Stinky halfway through her shop. She side-stepped the thrusting sword and pushed it away just for good measure. The blade scraping against her palm drew no blood and sounded like metal on marble. That was the effect of Stone of Nibo, one of the voodoo alchemist's favourite potions. When brewed correctly, it made her nigh-invulnerable. It was also clear and odourless enough to be mistaken for vodka, plus it gave her a boost of confidence that made it even _more_ like vodka, and it made opponents like the inexplicably hostile Stinky McPukepants question reality. Was there anything there not to love?

Stinky was questioning reality long enough for Shiela’s elbow to reach his face unnoticed and break his nose with a hideous crunch. In his moment of pain, his grip relaxed. Shiela swiped the weapon from his hand and, pirouetting a step back, aimed it straight at his gullet.

The battle was over. Shiela was smirking smugly. Stinky, being overpoweringly smelly at this distance and looking rather angry at his defeat, raised his free hand high.

He then raised his other hand. The blood was seeping back into his nose, the nose itself was crunching back into its original shape. Within a moment, he was as unharmed as when he walked into the store. He was _smiling_. It was a smile born in the deepest, darkest, foulest pits of hell. It was the stuff of Shiela’s nightmares.

It was so eerily familiar it broke the alchemist’s composed smugness and left her gazing at the regenerating Stinky with awe and dread.

“Who _are_ you?” she asked.

“Andrew Silas,” Stinky said, “I’m not surprised you don’t remember me, _little girl_. You were but a mewling babe when I last tried this.”

Shiela grimaced. Stinky _knew_ her. How? He tried to kill her before? Why? And what was with that healing?

“Alright, _Andrew Silas_ ,” she growled, “You’re going to answer _all_ my questions or, so Samedi help me, I will— _Yowch_!”

Something pinched her! She dropped the cane sword. She looked at her hand. There was a welling drop of blood there, like a needle had pinched her deep. The cane sword had a marked difference as well. Its cane pommel was a silver oblong spheroid carved into stylised shamanic skull. The carved ridges and eyes on the pommel, once inert and silver, were now glowing red.

“I’m afraid we need to cut this short,” Silas said, “Otherwise, I’ll be late for the grand reopening!”

Shiela looked up to see Silas gone, the door of her shop ajar. Her ire had grown into an instant despise of Andrew 'Stinky McPukepants' Silas. He tried to kill her— _twice_ , if he was to be believed—he messed up her shop, and worst of all, he didn’t even answer her questions!

“ _Hey!_ ” she yelled after him, scooping up both sheath and cane sword, “Get back here, you stinky bastard! Who’s gonna pay for the damages? _Hey!_ ”

She raced out the door to find Stinky gone. He wasn’t a good assassin, but he was definitely a fast runner.

Something else was wrong. The town was _empty_. Sure, a small town in the swamp with less than a hundred permanent residents _usually_ felt empty, but this was October! Sanctuary is a hot Halloween vacation spot! The town should have been bustling with tourists looking for Voodoo paraphernalia, and the voices of the local residents trying to peddle said paraphernalia should be loud enough from here. The Waterfront District was right behind her house!

A gunshot rang through the town. That pretty much confirmed where the residents—and possibly the tourists—were. It had come from the swamp path entrance. That meant she had a job to do.

With a sigh of relief and resignation, Shiela ran back into the shop. She emerged moments later with her bandolier of potions and six of her disposable bowies and machetes. Thus equipped, she made a beeline for the town border, hoping that the gunshot had been aimed right at Stinky’s asshole.


	2. Mission 1 Part 2

As it turned out, Stinky wasn’t at the border of the town.

The border with the single, solitary path into the rest of the swamp was marked quite distinctly by a palisade wall. This was partly in keeping with the town aesthetic, and partly because anything heavier might have sunk into the swamp.

It was mostly because the swamp was a terribly dangerous, demon-infested mire. Demons would regularly rise from the deep in the form of shambling zombies. The palisade was barely higher than an average human’s shoulders so the tourists could see the shambling undead parading past the town and still feel safe.

It was _meant_ to be safe. The Bog Zombies were supposed to ignore the town and shuffle on. They weren't doing that. They were shuffling _towards_ the palisades. Something was wrong.

The town’s residents had taken up positions along the barricade with scoped hunting rifles. The Bog Zombies were drawn to the smell of human flesh, and thus inexorably to their death by rifle. The residents were aware of the one flaw in this plan. Bullets were limited. Bog Zombies were _limitless_.

They collectively breathed a sigh of relief when the two stationed at the gate – twin sisters Dixie and Maude – cheered the arrival of a familiar tall tomboy in white with a distinctive top hat. Shiela had arrived just in time to do her town protector duties.

“There she is, blokes and sheilahs! Guardian of the village, tallest glass of water and a right beauty! It’s Shiela the Voodoo Alchemist!”

The tourists cheered. Shiela waved at them and put up her winning smile. The one doing the running commentary was the only permanent resident not at the palisades, 'Bayou' Pete Cox. Pete had the cushy job of keeping the tourists safe and calm. The former meant keeping them behind the palisade, and the latter...

“She'll give those zombies a right walloping in _no_ time!” Pete continued, “And then it’s pavs in the tour boat and beer in the boozer!”

Pete had a way with people that was only matched by his father. He could rouse the rabble over, say, a zombie outbreak, a tomboy, Pavlovas and beer. Proof of that could be found in the cheers of the tourists, who had forgotten they were in the middle of a Bog Zombie outbreak until the next rifle shot kindly reminded them.

He excused himself from the tourists and joined Shiela and the twins in an impromptu meeting at the town gate.

“Nice cane, Girly!” Pete exclaimed, keeping his voice low, “What kept you? I was running out of Aussie slang!”

Pete was genuinely Australian, it should be noted. He played up the slang for the tourists. 'Girly' was the nickname he had given Shiela, partly to avoid confusion, and partly because she hated it.

“Would you believe it was a hobo trying to kill me?” Shiela responded.

She was expecting a smirk at the least. The others looked like they had pissed in her soup.

“Did that hobo have black goatee?” Maude, the serious twin, asked.

“Did he have, like, _the_ worst shade of green pants on?” Dixie, the frivolous pigtailed twin, added.

“Did that dero smell like a dying dingo's diarrhoea?” Pete completed.

Shiela knew that a 'dero' was Aussie slang for a homeless man, but she hadn’t the faintest idea what a dying dingo smelled like, much less its diarrhoea. The twins seemed just as confused. The three girls quietly agreed that it probably smelled quite awful.

“ _That’s_ the bastard!” Shiela exclaimed.

“He leapt over the gate a minute ago,” Maude said, “We tried to stop him, but...”

_“Samedi damn it!”_ Shiela cursed, “If he's what I _think_ he is, then he burned out the ward just by showing up here.”

The others looked startled. They knew perfectly well what the wards were for, but they never heard of _anything_ burning them out.

“But he was a smelly _dero_!” Pete sputtered, “Why would a demon even _choose_ to look like that!?”

The main gate creaked loudly. The locking crossbar had begun to bend dangerously in the middle. A cursory glance told Shiela that there were over twenty Bog Zombies pushing against the gate, and even more were shambling towards it, heedless of the dozens of rifles filling them with enough lead to fell an elephant.

“Is it just me, or are these Bog Zombies stronger than before?” Shiela asked, then shook her head and instructed, “Never mind that. We have to reset the ward before we're overrun. Dixie, Maude, get the sewing kits!”

Dixie and Maude nodded and rushed off.

“Pete,” she continued, “It's time to work the crowd. I'm going for Ghede's Strength and Legba's Road. You remember the routines, right?”

She smiled at Pete. Pete grinned.

“I never forget 'em, Girly,” he said.

He turned around and addressed the tourists.

“Great news, sheilas and blokes! You're about to witness a rare sight! The Loa, the voodoo spirit-gods, are about to bestow their gifts on Shiela through her potions!”

Shiela smiled at the audience and made a show of pulling out the vial of red potion.

“Papa Ghede is the granddaddy of all the Loa! He’s a nice old bugger with a love of dirty jokes and a good cigar, but that’s not what Shiela’s after. Papa Ghede has the strength to make sure _nobody_ dies before their time on _his_ watch, and that’s the kind of strength Shiela is going to borrow.”

Signalled by the crowd's excited murmurs, Shiela took a gulp from the vial and replaced it on her belt. She felt raw, vicious power rushing from her stomach to tips of her toes and fingers. She grinned. She breathed through gritted teeth. Every iota of her being was itching for a fight. That gate was between her and the fight. That crossbar was locking out the fun. She _hated_ it. A more _playful_ part of her thought that crossbar could make even _more_ fun.

She walked up to the strained gate and placed a hand under the bar. It was a gnarled, felled tree trunk, as wide as Shiela’s head and as long as she was tall. It was more notable when one considered that she was often the tallest person in the room. With no effort at all, she flipped the massive crossbar into the air and leapt back.

The gates flung themselves open. Some of the Bog Zombies had been crushed by their mindless brethren against the door. Their acidic blood and gore was making the wood sizzle. The vast majority were still moving, and they stumbled in. Shiela roared and punched the first one in the funnelled line right in the gob. It pushed the lot of them back. She took off her right glove, which was already dissolving from the bit of zombie flesh on it. The Bog Zombie she had punched had lost its face, and then rest of its face flesh had been peeled back by the force. Its white skull practically gleamed in the town’s torchlight.

She had held back, of course. She had an audience. She needed to be a bit showier. She spotted the descending crossbar and grabbed it with both hands. The most wicked idea crossed her mind.

“Well,” she said with gleeful menace, “I have my cue…”

She pointedly looked at the crossbar.

“I have a cue ball…”

She looked at the unskinned zombie, now forever Cue Ball in her head.

“I have the first shot. Let’s _break_!”

She punted Cue Ball with all her might. It flew back at the other zombies and struck them. They were knocked flying out of town in many directions. To Shiela’s disappointment, the zombies did not scatter like cue balls but flew out like bowling pins. She growled in irritation at that. Her sensibility came in, explained the physics of the zombies’ flight, and wrested enough control to get her back on track. She had a job to do.

The tourists and a few of the townsfolk were cheering. She ignored them. She walked out of the town gate and took a good look at it. The gate’s hinge posts extended about twice as high as the gate itself. A sign was spanning them. It read “SANCTUARY. NO DEMONS PAST THIS POINT” in bold, red, glow-in-the-dark letters styled like dropping blood. The posts had long, wooden stakes protruding from them. Each stake was topped with a Bog Zombie head that had shrivelled and shrunken. The ward that repelled demons had been exhausted. Sanctuary was no longer safe.

Shiela needed a dozen fresh heads.

“I was right!” she exclaimed, rather more angrily than she intended.

She drew a machete in one hand and a bowie knife in the other. Two zombies had approached her from behind. She spun around and beheaded them both in a quick cleave. She batted the heads towards the gate, and they rolled into town.

Dixie and Maude were back. They had their sewing kits ready and their kitchen gloves on. They picked up the heads and started sewing.

It wouldn’t be fast enough. Shiela looked at the blades she was wielding and cursed in Samedi’s name again. The undead blood was far more acidic than before. Usually, the disposable blades would last for at least three zombies each, but just the first two had eaten through them. She dropped them and drew the next pair.

These were her last, unfortunately. Courier service in her town was slow at the best of times, but her new shipment of disposable zombie beheading equipment had spent more than a month in a depot outside the swamp. No amount of choice words was going to get her knives through customs faster, as she discovered.

She sliced two more off. Two more heads down, two more knives dissolving. She drew the last pair and swung at the next two zombies. Both knives didn’t go past the zombies’ gullets.

Shiela felt the effects of the potion waning. She felt less inclined to aggression out of spite. She also had the clarity of mind to realise that the zombies were tougher than usual. She leapt back as another zombie tried to bite her arm. She had to leave both chopping implements in the Bog Zombies’ necks, which dissolved within moments and fell to the ground.

There was just one weapon left in her disposal. She had strapped the cane sword to her belt before coming to the gate. She was hoping to get it melted in a zombie. Now it was her last resort. She pondered if it was sharp enough to cut without Ghede’s Strength. She didn’t have long to ponder. She drew the long, thin blade and sliced the oncoming zombie.

It cut so clean through she almost thought she missed before the zombie toppled forward and its head toppled back. What's more, the blade showed no signs of being affected by the corrosive zombie blood.

She made sure to kick the head towards the girls. They had finished sewing the other heads’ mouths and eyes shut.

“Hope you don’t mind doing the other ones in place!” she called out, “I have to speed things up!”

She backed away from the zombies and drew the vial of yellow liquid. Pete immediately launched into the routine about Papa Legba, the Loa that had inspired this potion, and then the bullshit about the speed one needs to walk his road. Shiela had no time to wait for him to finish. She took a dose that she estimated would last thirty seconds.

The world slowed down around her. Pete’s voice had become a deep drone. The shambling zombies stopped in their tracks.

She ran at them, slicing precisely at their necks. When she had enough, she kept on going, executing about a dozen rushed beheadings in the span of ten real-time seconds. She rushed back to camp, making sure to trip every zombie she hadn’t beheaded on the way, and picked up Maude’s spare rubber gloves. She gathered the heads and mounted them, throwing the shrunken ones into the camp. Dixie and Maude would want them for the souvenir shop.

With ten slowed seconds to spare, Shiela knelt by the entrance of Sanctuary. The floor of the entrance was one of the few bits of rock around the town that served as anchors for the floating wood that was the rest of Sanctuary. This one was the only one that had a pentagram etched on it. It was the primer for the ward that kept the town safe from zombies.

The speed did not matter to the ward spell. She chanted the dead language words _ad verbatim_ as her teacher taught them to her, as he learned them from his teacher, and so on and so forth for about five hundred years of history. The rune started glowing, faster and faster as the effects of the potion began to wane, and then suddenly a shift in the magical energies exploded from the pentagram outwards. As time resumed its normal flow from her perspective, the Bog Zombies that were neither headless nor tripped up looked momentarily confused, then started shambling away from the town.

The danger had passed. Sanctuary was safe once more. Shiela got up to her feet.

Dixie and Maude squeaked as a dozen shrunken heads rained on them. Shiela had forgotten she had thrown those. She eked out an apology at the twins. Dixie laughed and gave Shiela a thumbs up. Maude squinted at Shiela and smiled, an indication that she was not so quick to forgive and there would be reparations at Happy Hour.

Pete looked miffed at Shiela, probably for not letting him finish his bit. Entertaining the tourists was just about the only thing he was truly good at in times like this. She tried her best to convey with her expression that she didn’t have time to waste. She would, however, make it up to him with a beer later.

Shiela felt a sharp, searing pain rake across the small of her back like a hot poker with three prongs. She cried out in pain. Dreading the subsequent anguish, she spun around as she fell, drawing the cane sword and swiping.

The sword deflected a spindly hand with razor-sharp claws. The hand was attached to a creature Shiela had never seen before. It had the pale green skin, the wet sheen and the foul stench of the Bog Zombies, but it was oddly stretched and contorted, like the skin of a man was stretched over a metal endoskeleton into the form of a _werewolf_.

Falling on her shredded back was not a good idea, as Shiela discovered. The impact sent brand new overwhelming pain through her back. She couldn't think of anything but pain. She screamed a curse. The Bog Wolf raised its deflected arm to gut her.

Gunshots rang through the night. The rifle-armed citizens of the town did their very best to fill the Bog Wolf with as many bullets as their rifles could fire at a time. It recoiled from the shots, making a noise between a human scream and a wolf-like howl. There was a pause while they reloaded, and then another barrage of bullets struck the Bog Wolf.

It bought Shiela the time she needed. She took out the white potion. Pete would have talked about Maman Brigitte at this point if he had seen Shiela draw it out. She uncorked it and took a sip. The effect hit her like an anaesthetic shot. A comforting warmth spread from her stomach to her back. She felt the flesh knit itself back together. By the time the residents fired their third salvo, Brigitte’s Mending had fully repaired her back. The healing warmth spread to her heart. She felt the need to show compassion and love to the world.

She started getting up. She heard Pete saying something about holding fire. She was up on her feet, and the Bog Wolf was struggling to remain upright. She felt pity for the creature. She was sure its cries were anguish and pitiful whimpers. There was no way she could help it. None of her potions were effective on demons. The best she could do was put it out of its misery. She slashed its head off, the only part undamaged by bullets, and sheathed the cane sword. She picked up the head and-- her logic returning for a moment--took it to the gate, where she replaced one of the Bog Zombie heads with it. The central runes glowed brighter. The ward grew stronger.

She realised all the tourists and townsfolk were staring at her. She was supposed to say something. She smiled and raised a fist skyward.

“The town is safe!” she declared, “We’re Sanctuary once more!”

Townsfolk and tourists erupted in roaring cheers. Shiela found herself being carried into town on a wave of people. It was an admittedly small wave, since the town had less than two hundred people in it at any time, but they managed to carry her to Sanctuary’s outdoor pub. Dixie took charge of the pub and served her the customary celebratory drink.

Shiela grabbed her root beer and downed it in one go. This was one of the nights she felt embarrassed about being too young to legally drink.


	3. Mission 1 Part 3

“There you are, Girly! What are you doing out here?”

Shiela sighed. She didn’t know what to tell Pete. She had wanted to leave the party, but she wasn’t sure why her feet brought her back to the entrance of Sanctuary.

“I needed a breather,” she told him, “Besides, I’ve got a hunch that this isn’t over.”

“Anything to do with that dero?” he asked, then added, “By the way, that werewolf-looking drongo got you in the kiester.”

“You mean, the Bog Wolf?” she told him.

“Struth, I didn’t know they had a name!”

“They do now. I'm calling dibs on naming it.”

“It’s all good with me. Bog Wolf… I like it! It’s short, catchy, rolls off the tongue... The tourists will love it.”

It was then that what Pete had said sunk in. She patted herself on the small of the back, and sure enough, one of the scythe-like claws had ripped her trousers and undergarments. A small portion of her now-immaculate behind had been seen—and likely _felt_ during the crowd wave—by just about everyone.

“Oh, for Samedi's sake...” Shiela uttered, more resigned than embarrassed, “Great. Perfect cap on an already shit night. The whole town felt my ass.”

“Not intentionally,” Pete replied, “Nobody’s enough of a drongo to touch the ass of a badass, no matter how nice it is.”

“Oh, I don’t know about nice,” she responded, “I mean, I’m more of a beanpole than anything—wait, did you just compliment my ass?”

Pete was blushing and sputtering. Shiela was the less bashful between them, especially when it came to exposing some skin. This was out of her control, after all. Without Brigitte's Mending, she would have been scarred head to toe from all the demons that clawed at her over the years. Every time she came home with just some damaged clothes, she was thankful. It certainly got her flustered when Pete first teased her for it, but over the years, she had turned the tables on him. Nowadays, she could get him to squirm with just a word.

Sadly, the moment was cut short. Her fears were validated.

There is an ever-present fog in the swamp around Sanctuary. It's not particularly thick, but it does make it difficult to see anything past a few dozen yards from the walls. Nothing in Shiela's lifetime had ever parted it aside from the very thing she saw that day. Dead ahead of the village, the fog parted to reveal the long walkway of pontoon platforms tied to rocks and bits of wet ground all the way to the nearest destination outside the town. It should have been an empty lot, but it was instead a two-storey mansion of the obviously-haunted variety, partially covered in moss and yet otherwise intact. Lime-green light emanated ominously from its many windows. It was the same light behind the eyes and pouring from the empty eye sockets of the Bog Zombies.

Speaking of Bog Zombies, there were thousands of the damn things, peppered with hundreds of Bog Wolves, between Sanctuary and the newly-appeared mansion. They made the earlier onslaught on the gates of Sanctuary look like a drunken man attacking a fortress gate with his bare fists. Had it not been for the ward, Sanctuary would have been overrun.

“Samedi have mercy!” was all she could say.

“Is that what I think it is?” Pete asked.

“Yes,” she answered, “Five hundred years to the day it was sunk, the Escalier Mansion has resurfaced.”

The mansion was named after the family of her mentor, Comte Gerard Escalier. Five hundred years before that day, the dabbles of Luis Escalier, the family’s first and only necromancer, turned the house into a demon factory. Mad Luis bound the souls of family members and servants as guards for the factory. Thankfully, the shaman Francois Escalier managed to escape the mansion and used what power he had left to sink the accursed factory beneath the tepid swamp waters. With his untimely passing, there was none left who knew how the spell was cast. As it waned, more and more of the demon factory’s creations emerged from the depths to populate the swamp. With the mansion resurfacing once again, it was only a matter of time before the necromantic armies overpower Sanctuary’s ward and overrun the town.

Shiela tore her eyes away from Sanctuary's upcoming demise and looked at Pete. He had taken out his binoculars and, after a moment of scanning, gritted his teeth and growled:

“ _There's_ that demon dero _bastard_!”

He handed her the binoculars. He guided her as she looked through them. There, entering the house unimpeded, was that stinky bastard Andrew Silas. She had no more doubts about Stinky’s nature. Only a demon could have gone in unimpeded.

“I can't do this alone,” Shiela declared.

“You can always count on me, Girly,” Pete said.

She thought he couldn't have been serious. One look at his face confirmed he was. Pete was willing to put aside everything for the sake of saving Sanctuary.

“I know, Pete,” she replied, “and I always appreciate your help, but I'm not sure there's _anyone_ in Sanctuary who can help me with this. Good news is, Gerard knew a guy that _can_.”

She handed back the binoculars and took off for _Samedi Elixirs_.

She was sure she could seal the house on her own, but her magic wouldn't last quite as long as Francois's did. Alchemy was her strong suit, after all. Besides, that was only a temporary solution to a permanent problem. She was thinking it should be made a permanent solution. She needed a man that was good at knocking shit down. What's more, there was Stinky McPukepants, the demon. Maybe a demon hunter knew how to kill him...

There's only one demon hunter she knew of that was also good at knocking shit down.

Back in her store, she pulled up her phone from behind the counter. It was an old rotary model that lent itself well to the store’s atmosphere. She pulled out a tattered address book with the name 'Gerard' scribbled in faded letters on the cover. She sighed and gulped, bottling down both nostalgia and self-loathing, and browsed to the D section.

There it was. A number next to a password she couldn’t believe. She dialled the number. A man answered, sounding like he had a bite of food in his mouth, with the words:

“Devil May Cry.”

Hoping this wasn’t an elaborate joke her master was playing on her post-mortem, she answered with the password:

“Albatross.”


	4. Mission 2 Part 1

**Mission 2: The Red Bulldozer**

Dante wasn’t enjoying himself as much as he thought.

At first, he was having fun. These swamp demons were tough, agile, and smart enough to gang up on him. He was thinking the long trek to Sanctuary wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Then the blighters splashed on him. He was forced to rip off a sleeve to keep that corrosive gunk from eating his arm, and his right glove was a write-off. Weirdly enough, Rebellion, Ebony and Ivory were unaffected. Rebellion, he could understand. That sword has been with him through thick and thin, and he'd even go as far as saying it was more durable than him. Ebony and Ivory, though, were supposed to be ordinary handguns. Sure, they were masterfully crafted and customized for his use, but that didn’t make them Devil Arms like Rebellion. Either they’re better made than he thought, or he pumped so much of his essence into the guns over the years that they became more or less part of him.

He wasn’t taking any chances. He took a long break to wipe his guns clean.

Since then, he had been keeping his distance and shooting the demons from afar. He mixed it up with a Drive now and again, but even that got old fast. He was so bored he was actually keeping his mouth shut, and that amused his traveling companion endlessly.

“You’ve been awfully quiet. Are you coming down with something?”

That was his traveling companion feigning interest to sass him. He responded with a grunt and another pistol shot. That shot took out a row of demons that had conveniently lined themselves up for him. Boring.

“Oh, wow, it's worse than I thought!” she quipped, “Terminal boredom!”

That got a chuckle out of him, rather involuntarily. He added a voluntary quip and a smirk in her direction.

“Like I'd ever get bored with _you_ around, Twig.”

She gave him that look she always did. She hated being called 'Twig.' He'd nicknamed her when they first met. She was a skinny brat, he was a little shit-lord. Fifteen years later, he had grown up to be an ass, and she had grown into a sexy piece of redhead sass. He had half a mind to seal those pouting lips with his and grab a handful of that perfect tushy in the process. A stinky, damp demon-infested swamp was not conducive to that kind of mood. Therefore, he settled for the next best thing.

“Seriously, Tess,” he said, “these things are gonna _bore_ me to death!”

While saying this, he let his demon essence flow into Rebellion and performed a triple Drive. The red shockwaves met the demons head-on, splitting them in two and dissipating. The demons subsequently exploded into a corrosive mist.

“They’re no fun to snipe!” he griped, “And if I was anywhere near _that_ , I wouldn’t have any _clothes_ left!”

Tess was giving him a _different_ look this time, like she was about to crack up.

“What!?” he exclaimed.

“That’s the first time I hear you mention a _lack_ of clothes as a _negative_!”

There it was. The moment he'd been waiting for. The opportunity to make the Twig blush-bomb. He gladly took it:

“I know you like me in the buff, Twig...”

He added a cheeky grin and an even cheekier wink that made Tess act as predicted. She stopped smiling, looked away from him and blushed so hard she was practically a tomato. She was totally thinking about their fun times, he could tell. He wanted to milk it, to get her fully scandalised and sputtering, but he wanted her head in the game, and he wasn’t done griping.

“But I like to have clothes to put on _after_ the fun's done,” he added.

He suddenly drew Ebony and fired three shots to the side. Each bullet blew a chunk out of a shambling demon-zombie's head. The demons subsequently exploded, causing a chain reaction that exploded the cluster of demons around them. He only looked at the carnage to do a head count. Another dozen eliminated in a manner that would have been amusing to Dante had he not done it a dozen times over already.

“These things ain't leaving me much of a choice,” he concluded.

It was then that Tess tensed, looked back at the fog-obscured path they had come from, and snapped her fingers. Three pillars of fire erupted on that path, dissipating some of the fog, then disappeared a moment later. Three werewolf-like carcasses fell to the ground, shattering into large charred chunks. Tess always likes to barbecue demons till they're crispy.

Dante would’ve said so out loud, but all he could manage was an exasperated groan. Tess was always a meticulous witch, laying little traps for anything dangerous that might be following them and crisping it while it was trapped. This was one of the times where Dante could’ve used a little less of that meticulousness.

“What!?” she said, giving him _that_ damn look, “Oh, don’t tell me you _wanted_ to be ambushed!”

“It would’ve been _fun_ , damn it!” he whinged.

“Well, _someone’s_ gotta watch our backs,” she responded, quite logically, before adding, “Not all of us here are ruggedly handsome bulldozers…”

That moment, Dante forgot all about his boredom, his ruined coat and the fun he was robbed of. He grinned ear to ear. Tess was just realising what she said out loud, and she was turning red from sheer embarrassment again. He went for the kill:

“Twig, did you just call me ruggedly handsome?”

If they weren’t on the field, she would’ve gone off the deep end into the land of scandalised sputters. On the field, though, she always managed to hold back, but it was still amusing as all hell!

“Maybe!” she uttered “and I'm about to call you a showboating _dipshit_ if you don't get a move on!

He chuckled and started walking away when he felt a small hand swat his butt. He realised Tess was probably aiming for his arm or something and missed when he started walking.

“Hey, Tess,” he said, turning around to face her crimson face, “I know you like me, but can this wait until _after_ the job?” 

“Shut up!” she growled, “Keep moving!”

He did as commanded. She was angry on the outside, which meant she was dying of embarrassment inside. He was dying, too, but of bottled up laughter. His boredom had officially taken a hike.

It didn’t have enough time to return. It was only a few minutes of silent walking, broken up by the occasional gunshot or fire pillar, when something else broke the silence of the swamp.

“Twig! Listen!” Dante whispered.

The sound had kept going.

“Is that…” she whispered, “Is that a _cackle_?”

“Yeah, it’s gotta be.”

The sound died down, then started again.

“You know what else it is?” he asked, in his normal voice volume.

“What?” she responded.

“ _Fun_!”

He took off, fast as his legs could carry him, in the direction of the cackle. He glanced back to see Tess following him and giving him that disapproving look. Dante knew full well that when fun beckoned, he was like a child drawn to candy. He didn’t care. He was looking forward to the fun!


	5. Mission 2 Part 2

Dante followed his ears. They led him to a battle in progress. Some tall guy in a white suit and a top hat was fighting off the same kind of demons he and Tess were tackling earlier. Unlike Dante, the tall lanky guy was having fun. He had just grabbed one of the lesser demons by the ankle and was using it as a hammer against the other ones. Weirdly enough, some of the demons exploded like they did with him, but their acid didn’t seem to affect the guy.

“I wanna know that guy’s secret,” he said to Tess, “He’s having fun, but he ain’t getting burned for it.”

Tess giggled.

“Do you know something I don’t, Twig?”

In a moment of dramatic convenience—Dante was used to life throwing those his way—one of the demons knocked off the tall man's hat. The man had stopped to pull out some sort of vial from his belt before the demon attacked. A sea of blond hair spilled out, more than Dante had ever seen on anything that called itself a male.

“Still think it's a guy?” Tess asked facetiously.

The tall girl had leapt back to get out of reach, let out a yelp, and downed whatever was in that vial. Then she moved, and she was so fast that Dante almost lost her. He was used to inhumanly fast opponents, but the girl with the Rapunzel-level hair was tempting him to use Quicksilver.

“Stars above...” Tess declared with a hint of unease in her voice, “she’s an alchemist.”

Dante was acutely aware of Tess’s bad history with alchemists. She had met two to that point, and they had both been flaming assholes. He had a feeling she was gonna hate him for this. He sighed and revealed:

“Top hat, blondie, alchemist… She’s our client.”

She gave him that look again. She was filing away one more thing she was going to scold him about after the job. He didn’t like that look. Thankfully, the girl—the client—ended her super-fast fight with a finish that drew both his and Tess’s attention back. The girl struck a pose, with a cane in one hand and her hat in the other, just as the demons exploded.

Dante was more than happy to applaud that performance as he approached the girl. She got up, smiled and bowed like the world was a circus and she was a pretty fantastic act getting a round of applause.

“Not bad, Rapunzel!” he declared, “Got some tickets for that fun party?”

The girl blinked in surprise, then chuckled.

“Oh, wow,” she quipped, “I get it. Funny _and_ original. No, seriously, nobody's actually made fun of the hair before.”

The jovial long-haired girl—she didn’t look a day over twenty—hung the cane sword on her belt and extended her hand towards Dante. It was then that he realised she was taller than him. Dante could count the number of humans he met that were taller than him on one hand, and none of them were women.

“Shiela,” she introduced herself, “Voodoo Alchemist.”

Dante was momentarily stunned by the height difference, but he recovered and shook her hand, introducing himself:

“Dante. Demon Hunter.”

“Excellent!” Shiela exclaimed, then turned to Tess, “You must be Celia, then! Pleasure to meet you.”

She broke the handshake with Dante and extended it to Tess. ‘Celia’ was the pseudonym Tess operated under. It was weird for a witch to have two ‘known’ names, Dante knew, since ‘Tess’ was by no means her _true_ name. For a witch, a true name holds absolute power. Giving your own away to a stranger is like handing over your puppet strings to them. They could be a mad warlock or witch that wants a pet to do their dirty work, and the only pet better than a witch is someone like Dante.

Tess had a good reason for hiding her ‘known’ name. The debacle in Italy tainted ‘Tess Templar’ in the minds of all magic users. There was no way she'd introduce herself as that, especially to another witch.

Tess smiled and shook hands with the alchemist.

“Wiccan, right?” Shiela asked.

Tess’s smile faded. She made an exasperated sigh and muttered something about Shiela winning a prize. ‘Wiccan’ was the word magic users referred to hereditary mages by. Dante was curious to find out how Rapunzel deduced that.

“Thought so,” Shiela said, smiling broadly, “You have that whole 'fuck my family' look going on.”

Dante guffawed at that.

“She's got you there, Twig!” he exclaimed.

“Shut up,” Tess responded, looking supremely annoyed.

Shiela looked puzzled for a moment. From the way her eyes scanned Tess, Dante could tell the kid was curious about the whole ‘Twig’ thing.

“O-kay...” Shiela said, “Oh, right! ‘Tickets’ to the party! I've got ‘em here somewhere...”

She reached into her hat. She reached deeper. Dante was thinking that her hand shortening was a trick of the light, until the hat rim climbed past her elbow and almost reached her shoulder. She was mumbling about misplacing or forgetting something, and there were sounds coming from the hat that made it seem like the entrance to a cave of felt. Dante grinned. Shiela's hat was obviously magic, and it neatly explained how the hell she managed to hide that ridiculous length of hair.

With a little “Ah-ha!” Shiela yanked her hand out along with a pair of clear spray bottles full of a mysterious clear liquid. She handed one to Dante and the other to Tess.

“Spray that on yourselves,” Shiela instructed, “It’s a little something I came up with to make sure our Bog Zombies and Bog Wolves don’t melt your clothes or face off. Guaranteed to work! I tested it myself.”

Dante, ever suspicious of a mystery liquid, opened the top and took a whiff.

“Smells like soap,” he declared, “You’re not trying to pull a fast one on us, are ya, Punzie?”

Shiela snorted like she was suppressing the world’s biggest giggle fit. Dante couldn’t tell whether she was unwittingly admitting to scamming them or she was way too easily amused by the shortened version of her nickname.

“It’s definitely magic,” Tess/Celia declared.

Tess had been looking at the spray bottle, probably with her magic radar, aura thing, whatever. Dante knew a bit about how it worked, but he only cared that it did and that it has never been wrong about magic. It almost seemed like a cheat sheet to life at times...

Still, there was only one way to find out if it worked. Dante and Tess sprayed themselves from head to toe, making sure to cover all the nooks and crannies Shiela pointed out. Dante felt a momentary chill wherever the potion touched his skin. He noticed Tess was visibly shivering. He suppressed the urge to drape himself over the smaller witch.

With the spray applied, he baited dramatic convenience.

“How do we know it—?”

Suddenly, a demon—a _Bog Wolf_ —leaped out from behind him with a ravenous roar. Dante spun around, drawing Ebony and Ivory, and let loose a rapid-fire volley that disintegrated the demon mid-leap in a spectacularly messy fashion. Its acid blood splashed on everyone. There was no sizzling or pain declarations.

“Works like a charm!” he said, turning around, “Sorry I doubted you, kid.”

Shiela was looking pretty annoyed at being sprayed, but Dante’s apology made her grin nonetheless.

“No hard feelings,” she said, “Too many conmen in this line of work. They give us _honest_ witches a bad name, ya know?”

Dante chuckled. Even Tess’s death glare, after getting splattered, softened into a smirk.

“Right, then?” Shiela announced, “Off to Escalier Mansion we go!”

“Lead the way, Rapunzel!”

Shiela’s chuckle was a lot less joyful. Perhaps the novelty of her nickname was wearing thin. She led the way to the mansion nonetheless. The most eventful part of this little trip was Tess’s finger snaps, which meant she was being her usual overcautious self and hogging all the fun. Dante didn’t want to grumble in front of a stranger. After a few minutes, he got bored enough to talk again:

“Hey, Shiela, how come Ol’ Staircase ain’t here? I mean, this is a family matter for him, ain’t it?”

Shiela stopped in her tracks. Even with her back turned to him, Dante could tell she was trying hard to bottle up something. From the look on Tess’s face, it was something big.

“Gerard is dead,” Shiela uttered in a forced, emotionless way, “We buried him last year.”

Dante didn’t know what to say. He could empathise with the kid, having lost loved ones himself. He knew she didn’t want to talk about it, and he was trying to keep his mouth shut. He had questions, though. He had met Comte Gerard Escalier a decade ago. The guy was a damn good drinking buddy and a tough-as-nails bastard to boot. There was no way anything lesser than a powerful demon had killed him. Dante wanted to know who or what it was so he could put a bullet in ‘em for Ol’ Staircase’s sake.

It was a long moment of silence before Shiela strangely chuckled and said:

“Ol’ Staircase... So you’re the ‘dumbass drinking buddy.’ He was fuming about that nickname for a week...”

Tess guffawed and said:

“Yeah, Dante’s nicknames have that effect on people.”

She then repeated Escalier’s title for Dante and laughed even harder. They all carried on as she laughed. Dante sulked and grumbled at her to shut up. Then he realised how much this made him look and sound like his brother, and that made him rather incensed. Seriously, there was nothing remotely similar between himself and his twin brother, and he would pick a fight with anyone that insisted on claiming otherwise.

Before he could get truly irate, Shiela stopped and declared that they had arrived. The building before them was definitely a mansion, and one could wonder how it didn’t sink into the swamp _without_ magical help. It was stone, top to bottom, but moss had turned the stone a funny green colour. The windows were shuttered and barricaded, but an infernal red light shone through the gaps. Where the moss ended, a translucent lime-green ichor trickled down the walls. The pillars were covered in human face carvings twisted into horrific visages. Five hundred years only seemed to make the mansion grow and blossom with new and unsettling life.

Shiela had just finished giving them a history of the place before she approached the door and said:

“Be careful, guys. I'm not sure if Luis Escalier had the time before the mansion was submerged, but he might have placed some intruder countermeasures. Celia, would you mind helping me with—”

Dante walked up to the door as she spoke and kicked it in. Despite the young witch's cry of protest, nothing happened.

“Dante, what in Samedi’s name is _wrong_ with you!?”

“Relax, kid,” he responded with a chuckle, “If anything was gonna happen, it was gonna hit me when I kicked the door in.”

“Oh,” Tess responded sarcastically, “you mean like that time when you got blasted in the face by a very angry demon with electrical powers? Or was it the time when an offended ghost covered you in ectoplasm?”

Dante’s grin faded for a moment. In hindsight, he would have liked to be a bit more cautious on those occasions, but all the exiting fights that resulted in his walking blindly into traps more than made up for it. His smile returned.

“Yeah, thanks, Twig. That's my point. I kicked the door in, nothing happened. It's not trapped.”

He walked in. The mansion lobby was lit warmly and lavishly decorated. There were plush carpets leading to the staircases at the back, luxurious armchairs arranged along the east and west walls with end-tables for the guests to wait, and a phonograph at the last table on the west playing an old blues song. He could smell all that, as well incense and aged moist marble mixed in with the unmistakable scent of demons. It was all real, and part of him was baffled by it. How did this all remain so new for so long? Most of him was disappointed, however. He was expecting a better welcoming party. Not a three-headed ice-dog, really, but at least a pile of those Bog Zombies and some Bog Wolves or something. He decided it was time to tempt fate again.

“Ladies, this looks like it's gonna be a cakewalk!” he said, much to the dismay of the two witches.


	6. Mission 3 Part 1

**Mission 3: Notoriously Tess**

Tess wanted to murder that idiot. Dante's boneheaded insistence on tempting fate led to the three of them becoming separated. She had no idea where she was. Her best guess was one of the mansion wings where the servants' quarters were, given the more frugal decorations compared to the lobby. The first door she opened led into a room with three beds, a washbasin and a young girl sitting in the corner.

The young girl was pale white, transparent, and most certainly a ghost. From the look of her and more importantly, _the feel_ of her, Tess made an educated guess that the girl died when the mansion was sunk. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old. She was crying. Tess knew this had to be a trap of some sort, but she couldn’t help herself. She called out to the little girl.

The girl raised her head from her crying, took one look at the witch and screamed. It was an ethereal scream. It could be felt down to the bone.

Tess was only marginally unnerved. She had seen this before. Necromancers tended to use ghosts as alarms to alert them of intruders. The alarms had the added benefit of letting every undead creature in the vicinity know where the intruder is. If another ghost was in range, it would scream as well. The cry would be amplified until the entire lair was screaming. That would be enough to bring even Dante down.

There was a window of opportunity. The scream hadn’t been amplified yet. The demons hadn’t shown up. Tess took that opportunity. With a wave of her hand and a sharp, flinty phrase in a secret language of witches, she gave the ghostly girl the strangely maple-and-pine-scented freedom she needed. The girl stopped screaming. She looked thankful.

Two Bog Wolves showed up, leaping at the redhead witch instantaneously. The did not smell the ferrous oxide of her traps until they tripped them. She smiled at them before she blasted them both in searing fire.

The entire time, the ghost was staring in awe at the proceedings. With the monsters dealt with, Tess turned to the girl. With a snap of her fingers and a dancing phrase, Tess broke the necromancer's shackles and freed the girl.

“Merci,” the girl said, and faded from view, into whatever afterlife promised to her.

Tess watched the girl dissipate and ran through what she assumed from experience to be the resulting chain reaction. She knew that the necromancer would feel the sting of losing a minion— _they always did, the control freaks_. She wanted to make it sting a whole lot more. A bastard like that deserved no sympathy. She had yet to meet a necromancer who did. She turned to leave...

And noticed the door was gone. Because why the hell _not_ , she thought. She rediscovered the door a moment later, sitting demurely next to the bed where the girl had been seated earlier. Tess sighed. Only Dante was more irritating than a house with shifting geometry. She supposed that she should thank her lucky stars that at least there were no time slips… yet. She could have gotten out of the trap in an instant with a spell, but she saw the chance to mess with the necromancer more. She opened the door and stepped in.

The next room had _two_ of the screaming ghosts. Either the mansion was trying to trip her up, or the necromancer thought she would get overwhelmed before she could free them.

Both candidates had made the dubious decision to sincerely underestimate her.


	7. Mission 3 Part 2

Tess was the first to reach the stairs at the back of the foyer again, and that made her worry.

She had gone through a dozen rooms to get there, exorcising at least eight or nine times as many ghosts. She had also gotten some information out of the mansion’s cook, the only ghost she had met at that point who wasn’t compelled to scream at her. What he told her confirmed her speculation.

Luis Escalier, the thrice-damned necromancer, had decided to press-gang the souls of the mansion's staff into his very own eternally-bound guards and maintenance corps, all to keep his factory running for eternity. The poor cook was there only for the necromancer's own amusement at this point. Luis had long since shed his mortal coil, but he still kept ordering food he didn’t need. Naturally, the cook made sure his gumbo tasted vile. He would’ve loved to poison it, but Luis had too much of a hold on him.

Tess gave the poor man the freedom he desired. She assured him that his former master would suffer a fate far worse than the one he did. Thinking back on that exorcism only made her desire to track down Luis more immediate. That man deserved a Witch's Mercy.

Focusing on her anger eased her worry for Dante and Shiela. That dork had a knack for getting himself in over his head, and she knew for a fact he enjoyed it a lot. The alchemist... Well, she was capable, sure, but she was also really fucking young! None of her potions would make up for experience. Would she be alright? Images came unbidden to Tess's mind of Shiela, dangling from ethereal strings pulled taut by an unseen demon's hand. That was too specific to be nerves. The energies of this place must have been enhancing her Deep Sight. How long would it be before she was knocked out by her own visions?

Her ruminations were interrupted by a door to the west wing slamming open. Sounds of fighting and slicing could be heard within. A whimpering Bog Wolf was attempting to sneak through the door into the lobby. Tess was about to set it on fire when a white-sleeved arm grabbed it by the neck and dragged it back into the room. The whimper was silenced with a sickening crunch. Shiela walked out of the door, slimed and considerably enraged. She slammed the door shut and snapped off the handle with her bare hand.

“ _Stay in there and die, you disgusting rotting people-eaters!_ ” she roared, “Now, where’s that white-haired dumbass!?”

Tess was far more worried about the baby alchemist—okay, Shiela was very nearly an adult at that point, but still a baby compared to Tess—now that she could see her. She could see auras thanks to her Deep Sight, and Shiela’s aura was disconcerting. She'd seen before that Shiela’s aura was normally that of a human witch—a pale white that billowed and flowed like fog in moonlight. At that moment it was getting overwhelmed by vibrant, angry red that matched the red potion in some of the vials on her bandolier. The most vibrant red looked like a pressurised blood vessel running from her arms and legs to her forehead and pulsing in time with her heart.  Tess had seen this before, in the swamp, when the alchemist had drunk the yellow vial. It was yellow that time, with flashes of lighting every time her muscles tensed.

Thank the stars the effect was dying down by the time Shiela spotted Tess. Tess had to keep herself from sighing in relief when it did. She forced a smile on. Shiela smiled genuinely as the last of the veins dissipated, the anger likely receding beneath the surface. That couldn’t have been healthy.

“Oh!” she exclaimed joyfully, “Celia! Thank Samedi you’re okay! Where’s Dante?”

“I’m glad you’re okay too, kid,” Tess replied, “Dumbass isn’t here yet.”

“Oh. Does he do this kind of stupid stuff often?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”

“Invoke the shit out of Murphy’s Law?”

Tess snorted at that.

“Yes,” she answered, “Especially if he’s bored or pissed. I swear, when he gets here, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind!”

“You and me both, sister,” Shiela growled, “I had to clear out the whole west wing of the house because of him.”

“The west wing, huh? I just came out of the east wing. Did you have any ghosts to deal with?”

The two of them spent some time recounting their adventures in their respective wings of the mansion. As it turned out, Shiela had ended up in the guest rooms and children’s bedrooms. It took her a while to recognise them as such because—she shuddered as she said it—they had become abattoirs. The walls, the floors, the beds, the children’s toys... They were all caked with blood and grit. Some of it was fresh, some had dried centuries before. Skeletons and carcasses were strewn about haphazardly, some mangled or broken beyond recognition, others clearly identifiable as livestock or swamp native animals... Or people. The demons were consuming the flesh of _people_. Shiela could only watch for so long as a dead child was torn to pieces and devoured by these vile creatures before she snapped. She downed her red potion—Ghede’s Strength as she called it—and let her rage do the rest.

“Can’t say I blame you…” Tess said to the now trembling young girl, “Stuff like that is rough the first time around. That’s every other Tuesday for me, though…”

And in that one small sentence, Shiela came to understand that the redhead had seen things far, far worse than this already, several times over. She didn’t need to say it. It was pretty much written on her face.

“Sweet Samedi…” Shiela gasped before continuing, “Anyway... I can’t really remember much after that.  It’s all a big red haze before I got here.”

“Wait, we've been separated for at least half an hour! How? I thought your potions last a minute tops!”

“Yeah, on a normal dose... I usually drink a tiny bit of the vial. If I drink more, I extend the duration _and_ the side effects.”

Tess just sighed and rubbed her temples. Typical stupid alchemist... Who knew what the hell she was subjecting her body to.

“Hey,” Shiela added, “Isn’t that Red Dork taking a lot longer than us? What’s keeping him?”

Tess chortled. Damn kid had given her a great nickname for Dante. Oh hell... Shiela was starting to grow on her. She reminded her of a younger and more cheerful version of herself, almost like a little sister she never had. Well, if said sister was a _mutant giraffe_! Seriously, how did she end up surrounded by stupidly tall people? The kid alchemist was taller than Dante, for fuck's sake, and he was already _too fucking tall_!

Right on Shiela’s cue, the last door at the top of the stairs – the one that neither Tess nor Shiela used – burst off its hinges. A demon neither of them had seen before, burly and ape-like but sickly green like the rest, came running out and attempted to leap down. A deafening shotgun blast, _at least_ ten times louder than a shotgun _should_ be, vaporised the ape-like demon's torso. An excited, adrenaline rush-induced “Woo-hoo-hoo- _hoo_!” signalled the arrival of the Red Dork. Dante shot out of the doorway surfing on a Bog Wolf, the dumb show-off that he was! He ramped off the collapsed door just as huge Indiana-Jones-style boulder smashed against the doorway, wedging itself on the frame and barring the way through that door. Dante then back-flipped off the demon and made the most perfect of nonchalant landings while the demon plopped gracelessly onto the red carpet and skidded to a halt.

Shiela whooped and cheered at this over-the-top entrance. Tess kindly reminded her that they were supposed to be angry at him with a glare.

“Are you done?” Tess asked, unimpressed.

Dante looked surprised. Tess had a few things to say before playing along. She walked up to him and punched him in the arm.

“Ow!” he said, rubbing his arm as if it actually hurt, “Celia, what gives!?”

“Don’t play dumb with me!” she scolded, “You got us separated and almost killed just so you can have fun!”

“Sheesh, Twig, you weren’t worried about me, were you?”

“No, you dumbass! I was worried about Shiela!”

“Ah, you worry too much. Rapunzel can handle herself. Right, Punzie?”

It was then the kid alchemist walked up to him and punched him in the other arm. Dante’s wince was a lot more convincing this time around. Shiela must have had a pretty strong punch, Tess speculated, even without the strength potion.

“Sure, I can handle myself!” Shiela snapped, “But if you do anything like this again, I will dock your fucking pay!”

“Careful, Rapunzel,” Dante threatened, “You stop paying me, I stop working.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Tess piped in, “He’s actually interested now.”

Dante scoffed at Tess in a ‘whose-side-are-you-on’ manner. Messing with the dork was always something she enjoyed.

“Nine out of ten, by the way,” she said, ignoring Shiela entirely, “You let the surfboard flop.”

She gave Dante a grin as she said that. He chuckled.

“What can I say?” he replied, “Bog Wolves ain’t as good to ride as Hell Prides. Still could’ve done better, but… Couldn’t wait to show you this!”

He pulled out a short twin-barrel hunting shotgun from a holster on his leg. So that was what made that horrible racket! Tess took a closer look at the gun. She looked past the intricate engraving on the side showing a barrel-chested man with some form of serrated blade prosthetic arm poised to repel a wave of human-like demons. She looked past the polished stock and blue-tinted barrels. The shotgun had an aura of its own, emanating from the firing mechanism. It was like liquid gold trickling down to the trigger and pouring into the barrel.

“This has got to be a joke, right?” Shiela exclaimed, looking at the engraving, “I mean, how did a shotgun with an eighties’ movie reference get stored in here in the first place?”

“There’s one thing I can say for sure,” Tess said, “There’s genuine power in it. No curses, though...”

“I know what you mean, kid,” Dante added, “I thought the house was messing with me or something but it freaking _works_!”

He pulled the gun away and aimed it down the hallway. The surfboard Bog Wolf had gotten up and was attempting to sneak up on them before it found itself staring down the barrel of Dante’s new boomstick.

Dante pulled the trigger.

Stars above, that shotgun blast was almost eardrum-rupturing! The force of it turned the demon’s entire upper half into a spray of blood, gore and metal. The spray of viscera actually reached the ceiling, three times as high as Dante, and the mansion’s main door. Dante whooped in excitement.

“Great balls of Samedi!” Shiela exclaimed, “I think I've gone deaf.”

Poor kid had probably not covered her ears. Tess had enough experience with Dante’s ordinance to know it was the safest bet to cover one’s ears when he fired anything loud-looking.

“Oh, great!” she exclaimed, uncupping her ears, “Let’s add 'violation of the sound ordinance' to our list of felonies now!”

“It’s not like I’m gonna use it in the office, Twig,” Dante chuckled, “Not even sure I’m gonna use it after this job.”

Tess knew perfectly well what this meant. Devil arms tended to have strong enough personalities to affect their users. Dante wouldn’t risk it, so he often locked away his old devil arms in his basement. And joy of joys, Tess had to set up wards around that new shotgun, so it would’ve been another wonderful hour of her life spent in a lovely, dank, smelly basement, getting propositioned by Ifrit and annoyed by Agni and Rudra. She could only speculate how _this_ devil arm would affect him. Given the look of the engraving, would the gun make his jokes _even cornier_? She screamed internally at the thought.

“You’re going to need a second basement at this rate,” she quipped.

“Oh, thank Samedi, the ringing stopped,” Shiela suddenly exclaimed, “Do me a favour and warn me next time you fire that _boomstick_ , will ya?”

Dante chuckled and holstered the gun. He moved away, likely to look for his next bit of fun, the dumbass… Tess looked at Shiela and said:

“He doesn’t even do that for _me_ , and I’ve known him since forever. Best advice I can give is, just try to cover your ears every time you see or hear him reach for it. Oh, and try to keep your distance in a fight.”


	8. Mission 3 Part 3

Tess didn’t expect the other name for the mansion—the Demon Factory—to be so literal! Yet here they were, fighting a literal demon manufacturing machine.

It was the stuff of H.R. Giger's most Lovecraftian nightmares. It was at the bottom of the stairs they took to the basement, because of course it was. She found it hard to tell where the machine ended and the demon began. Wires and coils melded seamlessly into warped flesh, which in turn hardened into scales and then exploded back into wires and coils.

“There’s barely anything in Gerard’s notes about this,” Shiela said, “We’re going in blind.”

“Well, Punzie,” Dante said, “here’s a little advice from a seasoned demon hunter: When in doubt, C4 or improvise.”

With that, the idiot drew his guns and started shooting the massive demon assembly line. Shiela turned to Tess with a look on her face that perfectly reflected her question:

“Is he for real?”

If only Tess had a penny for every time she was asked that question...

“Yeah...” she responded with a resigned sigh, “To his credit, it works. Blow shit up or make shit up. It can get you pretty much out of any situation on a job. You won’t always have a handy dandy guide from Gerard, right?”

With that, Tess joined the assault on the infernal assembly machine. She took the more guarded approach compared to Dante’s brutal bulldozing. She made the tendrils and wires lash out at her by throwing tiny balls of fire before incinerating them as soon as they got in range and caught in her magic circles. Dante was throwing himself at the thing, slashing and shooting tendrils away before burying his sword into the main body of the creature itself.

Finally, Shiela joined them. Her aura had yet again an oddity, but a different one from any Tess had seen before. It looked like her default aura, but somehow hardened, crystallised into something that looked as hard as diamonds. An invulnerability potion, it seemed, as she weaved between tendril strikes and cut even more of them off. Some of the sharper tendrils grazed her, making a sound akin to steel on marble, but there was no bleeding, just bits of torn fabric. Kid's alchemy was pretty good.

The machine put up a hell of a fight. It lashed at them with sparking wires and hissing coils. It spawned Bog Wolves at them by the dozen. It hissed steam and spat oil at them as they took down piece by accursed piece. Then finally, it stopped fighting and spawning Bog Wolves. It seemed like it was very much dead. Its aura was fading fast.

“Did we do it?” Shiela asked. She was more than a hundred metres away, her clothes only slightly ripped and not a single scratch or stain on her.

“We sure did!” Dante said, looking considerably less dishevelled than he should from a messy fight like this, “Told ya, Punzie! C4 or improvise. Gets ya through just about—Tess! Look out!”

Dante's warning came not a moment too soon. For one final bullshit act of assholery, the machine had spat out the contents of its boiler at her. The coals were hot and flew damn fast, but she was a little faster. She drew the heat away from them and—wait, did the idiot just use her _other_ name? The realisation of what Dante had done hit her like a brick. She stood shocked and unmoving like a deer in headlights as the cold coal pelted her.

With the machine dead, the room fell into an uncomfortable silence. Tess was hoping that Shiela hadn’t heard that. She was also hoping that Dante would bite his freaking tongue off for this, but she knew that wasn’t gonna happen any time soon. The fucking idiot!

“Tess... I _thought_ I recognised you!” Shiela said, breaking the silence.

Tess glanced at Dante. He looked like he'd swallowed a particularly bitter pill. He was also poised to fight. Tess turned her deer-in-headlights expression towards Shiela. The younger witch looked ecstatic, like she had solved a puzzle she was struggling with.

“A redhead wiccan,” she continued, “with _that_ kind of command over fire, _and_ ties to Dante Sparda. What are the chances of there being _two_ witches like that?”

Shiela chuckled, looking as cheerful as if she’d just been told a very funny joke. Tess had no idea what the younger witch would do. Would she try to kill the infamous coven killer? Would she try to extinguish the Salamander’s daughter? Most witches would try. They were stupid and stubborn like that. Dante would most certainly fight Shiela if she tried anything. He may have taken a liking to the kid, but he was fiercely loyal to Tess. Tess herself was ready to fight to the death for her own life if it came down to it. She didn’t want to kill the kid, but if she had to...

Shiela, still looking amuses, walked up to Tess and offered her hand for a shake.

“Nice to meet you, Tess,” she said, “Gerard spoke highly of your skills.”

Just like that, all the tension in the room was gone. Tess smiled, suppressing a sigh of relief, and shook Shiela's hand.

“He also told me to be wary of you,” Shiela continued, “but there’s no need for that, is there?”

It was a mild relief for Tess to find a witch sane enough to not try to kill her. Part of her wasn’t sure if that was the case. It was a small part, made entirely of paranoia, that kept telling her Shiela was just biding her time, waiting for a moment when Dante wasn’t near before killing her.

“Sounds like he was a smart man,” Tess responded.

Shiela showed a twinge in her smile. It was so short-lived that Tess almost didn’t notice it. Tess understood loss. It took empathy to speak with the dead, after all. She almost admired how plucky the younger witch was in spite of it.

With that, Shiela broke off the handshake and went for the door.

“Looks like you got a student,” Dante joked.

She didn’t reciprocate. He stopped, eyeing her with some surprise. She took the opportunity to punch him in the arm. He exclaimed in mock pain.

“Well done, dipshit!” she growled, “What are you gonna do for an encore? Scream my _true name_ to the heavens?”

“Oh, give me a break!” he responded, “It was a slip of the tongue! You were in danger!”

“I _wasn’t_ , you doofus! It was just some hot coals! You might as well have warned me of a mosquito!”

“ _Guys!_ ” Shiela exclaimed, “Do you think you can put your little spat on hold and help me with the door? I think it’s stuck!”

Tess and Dante both turned to see Shiela trying to push open a door that refused to budge.

“I got this, Punzie,” Dante said, “Step back.”

Shiela obliged. Dante stepped up to the door, cracked his knuckles and shoulders…

And gave it the boot so hard it came off its hinges. The door flew into what seemed like a concrete corridor far plainer than the house above, taking with it some very astonished-looking demons that had previously been holding it in place. The door slammed against the far wall, splatting the demons into a puke-green stain that was already sizzling away at the wall.

But _of fucking course_ there were at least two demons for each one that was holding the door, just waiting to storm the witches and the demon hunter.

“No rest for the wicked…” Tess grumbled as she joined Dante and Shiela in the fight.


End file.
